


Autoscopy

by TheDisc (TheDisco)



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Mild Gore, thinkin about how online works in a ""realistic"" way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-08 05:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18888553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDisco/pseuds/TheDisc
Summary: As Holt placed his hand on the door to the general store, he looked down the dusty street and saw himself standing on the horizon.(Autoscopy: An out-of-body experience.A look at how the respawn period in Red Dead Online affects the player.)





	Autoscopy

As Holt placed his hand on the door to the general store, he looked down the dusty street and saw himself standing on the horizon.

The midday sun blazed behind him. People bustled, seamlessly weaving in and out. The doppelganger stood with his arms dangling at his sides; heavy set and tall with familiar dark skin, and long hair pulled back out of his face. Listless. Expression placid. Staring out.

Holt wasn’t sure what to make of it. He remained paused against the door for a second, staring back. His head felt heavy, and his chest ached. Someone bumped into the doppelganger’s shoulder. Neither of them reacted.

Holt blinked the sweat out of his eyes. Someone touched his arm.

“Got a problem, mister?” Their voice sounded a million miles away.

Holt stared at himself. The doppelganger stared back. Everything around him melted into one disgusting pool of sensory overload.

Someone shoved Holt’s shoulder. He didn’t move. They barked words at him, hot and angry, directly in his face. Holt stayed transfixed on the doppelganger. Empty eyes staring out at each other. Holt took a breath.

A gun clicked next to his ear as a thumb pulled the hammer back.

Holt blinked, and suddenly he was standing at the end of the street. The sun was hot against his back. Sweat dripped from his forehead, down his temple to his scarred jaw. Breathing felt impossible and unnatural. His legs were weak.

People walked around him, seamlessly weaving in and out. There was a fight in front of the general store. A lithe man took off running.

Someone laid on the ground.

Holt’s legs moved, but they didn’t feel like his own. He walked down the street.

His mind was quiet with static silence. His chest felt hollow. As Holt walked and pushed his way through the crowd, he bumped shoulders with strangers. He didn’t react.

He stopped just short of the general store. People walked around him, talking, but their voices and their bodies melted into one, incomprehensible mess. Sounds and sights and colours and emptiness all together as one sensation of nothing.

Holt stood over his own body, sprawled in the dirt. Dark, glassy eyes stared upwards at the sky, mouth twisted open as if it were about to say something.

A steady trickle of blood seeped out through the burnt hole in his throat and collected under his head. His long, dark hair matted in the mess. His hat discarded to the side.

Holt looked around. People weaved in and out. Walking around him, speaking a language so familiar yet so foreign. No one looked at him. No one acknowledged him. No one pointed out the body on the ground.

An ache started in Holt’s chest. His mind felt fuzzy.

He knelt beside the body. He picked up his hat. There was a smear of blood on the brim.

Holt blinked. He breathed in. He felt the world collapse around him.

There was no body on the ground.

People cast worried looks as they brushed by Holt, who squatted at the edge of the street. Someone stopped, asked if he needed help.

Holt blinked the sweat out of his eyes. His mind began to buzz with sounds and feelings. There was a searing pain in his breastbone. He looked over the hat in his hand.

There was a smear of blood on the brim.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks again to my boy for lettin me straight up jack his characters to write abt


End file.
